By the time Aarav and Rishi Vardaan returned from the rocks, the sun was already leaning toward evening.
To anyone watching from a distance, they were just:
a boy,
an old man,
walking back from the hillside.
No one saw the thin crack in the air.
No one saw the beast of shadow being unmade.
No one saw the gold-and-black light flowing from Aarav's hand.
But the world had felt it.
And the world was about to answer.
š¾ Tired Bones, Tired Flame
Aarav's legs felt like they were made of wet clay.
Each step back toward the village took effort.
His right arm ā the one that had thrown the strange light ā ached from shoulder to fingertips.
"Is it always going to hurt like this?" he asked.
"Not always," Vardaan said. "Pain is your body saying, 'I did something new. Give me time to learn.'"
"It feels like I wrestled a bull," Aarav muttered.
"You wrestled Adharma," Vardaan said quietly. "Even a small piece of it. Do not be surprised that it pushes back."
Aarav glanced at him.
"You've done this before, haven't you?"
Vardaan's eyes went distant for a moment.
"Many times," he said. "In other places. With other students. With otherā¦ endings."
Aarav wanted to ask what "other endings" meant.
He decided he wasn't ready for the answer.
As they entered Dharmapura again, life swirled around them:
women carrying water pots,
men returning from fields,
children chasing each other,
someone calling for their lost chicken.
Everything looked so normal that for a second, Aarav wondered if he had imagined the Shadrik.
But the ache in his arm and the tired pull in his chest told him otherwise.
š Kiran's Almost-Truth
Kiran found him near the well.
"There you are!" he said. "I was starting to think the crows carried you off."
"You'd miss me," Aarav said.
"I'd miss having someone slower than me to race," Kiran shot back. Then he squinted. "You look like someone used you to plough all the fields alone. What happened?"
Aarav hesitated.
He could tell a complete lie.
Or a half-truth.
He chose the second.
"Vardaan-ji took me walking in the hills," he said honestly. "We walked far. I'm justā¦ tired."
Kiran snorted.
"Old men walk slow. Don't blame him for your thin legs."
He punched Aarav lightly on the shoulder ā the wrong shoulder, fortunately.
Then his expression changed.
"Heyā¦ did you feel it earlier?" he asked.
"Feel what?" Aarav said, suddenly alert.
"The cold," Kiran said. "When I was feeding the goats, there was this wind. But only for a moment. Like someone opened the door of winter and shut it again."
Aarav thought of the crack. Of the Shadrik. Of the air turning cold enough to see his breath.
He swallowed.
"Iā¦ was up near the rocks then," he said. "Maybe it was just wind."
Kiran shrugged.
"Maybe. But the goats didn't like it. And the birds flew off like someone shouted at them."
He shook off the thought and grinned again.
"So. Tomorrow, we race to the river? Unless the wise rishi has you sweeping caves or something."
"Tomorrow," Aarav said. "Ifā¦ nothing strange happens."
Kiran laughed.
"In Dharmapura? The strangest thing is you."
He ran off, calling something rude over his shoulder.
Aarav watched him go.
For a moment, he wished very deeply that he truly was the strangest thing in the village.
That there were no cracks, no beasts, no two-colored flames.
The wish sat in his chest for a moment.
Then it met reality and dissolved.
š The Night Taste of Fear
That night, the sky was unusually clear.
Stars scattered themselves across the darkness like crushed crystal.
The air was cooler than the night before.
Aarav lay on his mat, staring at the beams in the ceiling.
Vardaan slept in the front room.
Meera had been too grateful for his kind manners and calming effect at the river to let him go so soon.
"Let the rishi rest here," she had said. "Maybe his presence will bring the rain gods' attention back."
Aarav almost said: It's not the rain gods you should worry about.
He stayed quiet.
Slowly, his eyes grew heavy.
The world of the room dissolved.
He dreamed.
But this dream was not like normal dreams.
He knew it, even inside it.
š«ļø The Shared Dream
He stood in the middle of Dharmapura.
But the village was wrong.
All the houses were there,
all the paths,
the well,
the trees.
But everything was covered in a grey mist.
Not thick enough to hide shapes.
Just enough to steal their color.
He looked down.
His own hands were pale, like they had been washed in smoke.
He walked through the village.
No sound.
No voices.
No animals.
His chest flame glowed dimly, the only thing that seemed to have real color.
"Hello?" he called.
His voice went nowhere.
It didn't echo.
It didn't bounce off walls.
It justā¦ stopped.
He felt a tug.
His feet began to move on their own.
They took him to the river.
The riverbed was almost empty in the dream.
Just a thin, black ribbon of water.
The rest was cracked mud and scattered stones, stretching like dry bones.
All along the riverbank, people stood.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Their faces were blurred, as if someone had smeared them with an invisible hand.
They stared at the thin line of black water with empty, hopeless eyes.
He recognized some of them:
the farmers from the fight,
the woman who had agreed with him,
the children who usually threw pebbles and splashed.
They did nothing.
They just stared.
He noticed something else.
Around each chest, the light he had seen when he calmed the fight was almost gone.
Just tiny flickers remained.
But the smokeā
the Adharmic smokeā
was strong.
It rose from their heads like dark steam, swirling upward.
Up where?
He tilted his head back.
And froze.
Something huge moved in the misty sky.
Not a shape with clear edges.
More like a shadow behind fog, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other.
It had no clear face.
But it hadā¦ presence.
Heavy.
Watching.
Hungry.
From that vast shadow, long, thin threads dropped down.
They looked like spider silk made of darkness.
Each thread attached to someone in the villageā
to their heads, their backs, their chests.
Whenever a person's shoulders slumped further in despair,
one of the threads pulsed brighter.
Aarav's heart hammered.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The huge shadow didn't answer.
But deep inside his mind, a word surfaced on its own.
Not from Vardaan.
From somewhere else.
"Raj."
King.
He shivered.
"King of what?" he whispered.
The shadow pulsed.
Not one word this time.
A feeling.
Fearā¦ turned into power.
Hopelessnessā¦ turned into chains.
Despairā¦ turned into throne.
A title formed, as if etched in his mind by a cold finger.
Shadow King of Fear.
His chest flame flickered.
The gold side trembled, as if wanting to burst into brighter light.
The black side shivered, as if kneeling.
The giant shadow began to lower its head.
He could not see eyes.
But he felt them.
Looking.
Directly at him.
One of the dark threads dropped toward his chest.
It didn't touch him yet.
But it hung there, a finger's width from his heart.
Just like the shadow in the river.
Just like the crack in the rocks.
Closer.
Closer.
His breath caught.
Somewhere far awayāin the real worldāhis body twisted in sleep.
šļø A Mantra Like a Rope
Just as the dark thread was about to touch his chest, another sound entered the dream.
Not from the sky.
From behind him.
Clear.
Steady.
Old as the creation tale.
A single word.
"Om."
But this time, it was not soft like when Vardaan had made the Shadrik pause.
It was strong.
Deep.
It rolled through the dream village like thunder rolling through clouds.
The dark thread jerked back as if it had been burned.
The giant shadow recoiled slightly.
All the thin strings attached to the villagers trembled.
Some loosened.
Not all.
Aarav spun.
Vardaan stood behind him in the dream.
Or something that looked like Vardaan and was Vardaan, but also more.
His simple robes moved in a wind that Aarav could not feel.
His eyes glowed with a soft light, like someone had placed two small full moons inside them.
He held no staff.
He didn't need one here.
"Rishi-ji?" Aarav asked, his voice shaking.
"Yes, child," Vardaan said.
"You'reā¦ in my dream?" Aarav said.
"And you are in many dreams at once," Vardaan replied. "Look."
He gestured around them.
Aarav looked again at the villagers.
Their blurred faces shifted.
For a moment, he saw each of them clearly, as if their features had snapped into focus.
He saw:
the farmer who had dropped his stone,
the woman who had spoken of storms,
Kiran's mother,
a crying child from two houses away.
Their real-world faces.
Their real-world fears.
"They are all dreaming this?" Aarav whispered.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "The Shadow King sends shared fear-dreams. It drinks from the hopelessness of many at once. That is its food."
"Canā¦ can they hear us?" Aarav asked.
"Not yet," Vardaan said. "Right now, we stand half-betweenāwhere the threads and the flames can be seen."
He touched Aarav's shoulder.
"You did well today," he said simply. "But when you unmade the Shadrik, the other side noticed the hand that struck it."
"The King?" Aarav asked, looking back up at the towering shadow.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "This is not its true form. Only a fraction. A taste. But even a taste like this can drown a village in despair if left unchecked."
"Can we fight it?" Aarav asked.
"Not as you are now," Vardaan said. "You cannot strike the King of Fear as you struck a small hunter. To destroy fear completely would also destroy caution, carefulness, many things the world still needs."
"Thenā¦ what do we do?" Aarav asked.
"What Dharma always does in Kali Yuga," Vardaan said. "We push back where we can. We cut the threads we are able to reach. We strengthen the flames so the strings cannot hold."
He nodded toward Aarav's chest.
"Start with your own."
š„ Cutting the Thread
Aarav looked at the dark string hovering near his chest.
It had pulled back a little after Vardaan's mantra, but it still hung there, trembling.
He thought of the inner room.
He thought of his two-colored flame.
He imagined the room appearing around his dream-self.
The flame was bigger here.
Gold brighter.
Black sharper.
The door in the back of the room trembled more strongly, as if the shadow-self had sensed this new danger.
"Don't open," Aarav thought firmly. "Not now."
He looked at the flame.
"I chose you earlier," he told the golden side. "I choose you again. Help me."
The golden part surged gently.
The black part hissed, as if annoyed, but followed, wrapping around the gold like a dark ribbon around a staff.
Trusting his instinct, Aarav reached up in the dream and grabbed the dark thread near his chest.
His hand passed through it at first.
Cold.
Numbing.
He pushed again, this time imagining the gold-and-black energy in his palm.
His hand litānot blinding, but clear.
The thread became solid.
He gripped it.
It squirmed, trying to slip free.
"No," Aarav said through his teeth. "You don't get to sit in my heart."
He squeezed.
The thread snapped with a sound like a breaking icicle.
The loose end whipped upward toward the shadow in the sky, vanishing into the mist.
The other end, attached to his chest, dissolved into dark dust that the inner flame quickly burned away.
Pain flared for a heartbeat.
Then eased.
He exhaled.
"I did it," he whispered.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "You refused the King's first hook. Remember this feeling. You will need it again."
š Tiny Lights in the Mist
Aarav looked around.
Some of the threads attached to the villagers were thinner now.
A fewājust a fewāhad snapped when Vardaan had spoken the mantra and when Aarav had cut his own.
In those people's chests, the little inner lights he had seen earlier grew a little brighter.
Most were still dim.
The Shadow King's massive form loomed over all.
"You can't cut all of them tonight," Vardaan said quietly. "You would break yourself before you even reached a quarter."
"So manyā¦" Aarav murmured, his throat tight.
"Yes," Vardaan said. "This is Kali Yuga. Adharma often looks bigger. But rememberā"
He pointed.
A few tiny flames among the villagers shone brighter than the others.
Perhaps a mother refusing to give up on her sick child.
A father determined to share his food fairly even in shortage.
An old woman whispering genuine prayers, not out of fear, but love.
"These," Vardaan said, "keep the world from breaking. You are not alone. You are not the only light. But you may become one of the brightest in this place."
Aarav looked up at the towering shadow.
Something stubborn inside himāa feeling he was beginning to recognize as the voice of his gold flameārose.
"I won't let you turn my village into a place with no hope," he whispered, mostly to himself.
The shadow seemed to hear anyway.
A deep, echoing rumble rolled through the mist.
Not words.
But a sense of amusement.
Interest.
Like something enormous had just noticed a tiny antā¦ that bit back.
š Waking with a Weight
He woke with a jolt.
His heart pounded.
Sweat cooled on his skin.
He took a shaky breath and looked around.
The dim shapes of the room were familiar:
the low shelf,
the clay pots,
the door curtain.
He heard something outside.
Voices.
Not loud.
Afraid.
He got up and slipped to the doorway.
Outside, in the early blue-grey light before sunrise, small clusters of people stood talking.
"ā¦had the same dreamā¦"
"ā¦the riverā¦ it was so dryā¦"
"ā¦a shadow in the skyā¦"
"ā¦I felt like I could never be happy againā¦"
Kiran ran up to him, wild-eyed.
"Aarav!" he blurted. "Did youā"
"Dream of the river and fog and something huge above us?" Aarav finished quietly.
Kiran stopped.
"Yes," he said. "How did youā¦?"
"Because I was there too," Aarav said.
Their eyes met.
For the first time, Kiran lookedā¦ scared.
Not of Aarav.
Of the world.
"Is something wrong with us?" Kiran asked. "Did we all eat bad grain or something?"
Before Aarav could answer, Vardaan stepped out from behind him.
"Nothing is wrong with you," the sage said calmly. "Something is wrong with the age you live in."
People turned.
Whispers went quiet.
Vardaan looked over the gathered villagers, his eyes kind but firm.
"You have been touched by a fear-dream from the other side," he said. "From a great being of Adharma that feeds on despair."
People shifted uneasily.
"So it was notā¦ only me?" one woman asked.
"No," Vardaan said. "It visited many of you at once. That is how it grows strong. But understand this tooā"
He pointed to the faintening stars.
"Dawn comes every night. No darkness has ever stopped the sun from rising."
His voice, though gentle, carried.
"There is Adharma in this world," he said. "But there is also Dharma. And as long as even a few of you choose to act with courage and kindness, the cracks can be mended."
A little murmur of relief ran through the group.
Not full comfort.
But something to hold on to.
Vardaan's gaze slid briefly to Aarav.
"For now," he finished, "light your lamps, care for each other, share what you can, and do not let fear tell you who you are."
Slowly, people drifted away, back to their tasks, still talking, but with a little more color in their voices.
Kiran stayed.
He grabbed Aarav's arm.
"You knew," he said in a low voice. "You knew something like this could happen."
Aarav took a breath.
"Something," he admitted. "Not everything."
Kiran searched his face.
"Promise me," he said. "If something is happeningā¦ if there's moreā¦ you won't leave me in the dark?"
Aarav looked at his friend.
At the boy who teased him, raced him, shared stolen mangoes with him.
At the boy whose inner flame he'd seen dim and then flicker brighter in the shared dream.
"I promise," Aarav said.
The flame in his chest warmedānot hot, not cold.
Just steady.
He didn't know then that promises made in the presence of Dharma and Adharma both
have a way of being tested.
Sooner than he thought.
For now, the sun pushed its first gold line over the horizon.
The dream-shadow of the King of Fear faded from the sky.
But in the unseen depths of reality,
it did not sleep.
It watched Dharmapura.
It watched the boy.
And it began to plan.
ā¦ END OF CHAPTER ā¦